


The Old Detective Inspector

by flashofthefuse



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-11
Updated: 2016-03-11
Packaged: 2018-05-26 04:14:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6223456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flashofthefuse/pseuds/flashofthefuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A brief conversation between Jack and Phryne in the middle of Unnatural Habits, right after Rosie has told Phryne that she makes things worse for Jack.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Old Detective Inspector

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by Floydsroom's Tumblr post about this scene.

“You’ve really made things worse for Jack, you know.”

Rosie Sanderson stormed from the room.

“Unusually devoted, isn’t she? For an _ex_ -wife,” Prudence Stanley sniffed. It was one thing when she criticized the behavior of her bold and occasional impropitious niece, it was quite another when someone else did, especially in Phryne’s own home. The woman had some nerve.

“I’m sure she means well,” Phryne said.

“Are you? Well, I suppose I should be off, I imagine you and your Inspector have much to discuss,” she said. “I’ll show myself out. Good-day Phryne.”

Jack passed her as he returned to the parlor.

“Good-bye, Mrs. Stanley, thank you for your assistance today,” he said.

“One does what one can, Inspector. I’m sure you and my capable niece will get to the bottom of whatever is going on. Good-day.”

She threw her head back proudly as she walked from the room.

“Capable, are you? When did she become your biggest fan?” Jack asked, with a quirk of his mouth. “Not that you aren’t more than capable, I’ve just never seen her so admiring of your work before.”

“She’s always appreciative when my efforts are of service to her, and she’d very much like to find out what became of her housemaid. Joan made an excellent flummery, I’m told,” Phryne said.

“Thank you for this, Phryne,” he said.

“For what?”

“The use of your parlor, and for putting up with Rosie’s condescension. I know it wasn’t easy to sit back and listen to her accuse you of meddling. I am sorry, and I would’ve have spoken up for you, but I don’t think we can afford to antagonize her. We might need her and her fiancé, and I’d rather not give her a reason to go to George and tell him what we’re up to.”

“You’re quite right, and there’s no need to apologize. I’m perfectly able to deal with the odd, patronizing comment. It’s not the first I’ve heard,” she said, “but, she seems to think I’m making things worse for you. Am I Jack?”

“I can’t imagine how,” he said, his eyes playful.

“Can’t you?” she said, smiling. She was very sure he could think of a myriad of ways she had complicated his life.

“It’s not really about you,” he said. “She’s always felt I squandered my potential. She’s just found something new to blame for my lack of ambition. I truly believe that she thinks she has my best interests at heart. She’s not a spiteful person, not really.”

“I hope you don’t mind my saying this, but I’ve noticed that you’re very solicitous of her,” she said.

He tilted his head and his eyebrows shot up briefly, the way they often did when he was contemplating something.

“Am I?” he said. “I suppose that’s to be expected. I did fail her, after all,” he said.

“How did you fail her, exactly?”

“I told you, I returned from the war a different man than the one she married,” he said.

“Don’t you think, perhaps, that you failed each other? A marriage is a partnership, isn’t it?”

“The good ones are,” he conceded.

“And I don’t believe you returned as such a changed man. I’m not sure you ever were the man she married,” she said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I just mean that maybe she never really knew the man you are. The man you always have been. The war left its scars on us all, but are you really so fundamentally changed?”

“I was cold and distant when I got back. I threw myself into my work, and I never even tried to live up to her expectations of me. I was a disappointment.”

“To whom?”

“You don’t understand. She had hopes for our life and I couldn’t fulfill them. I couldn’t make her happy.”

“Because she thought you should be working to advance yourself? To rise in the ranks, like her father?”

“That was part of it.”

“And that would have made her happy?”

“I believe so,” he said.

“But what about you? Is that what you wanted Jack? Even before the war?”

“Before the war? I was young. I loved the work. I liked helping people and the puzzle solving. I wanted to learn all I could and become a good detective. That’s about as far as I’d gotten with my ambitions, and apparently as far as I ever will,” he said.

“Are you disappointed with your place? It seems to me you’re happy where you are,” she said.

“I am happy. I would be miserable sitting behind a desk.”

“So, it wasn’t so much that you failed Rosie, it was more that she couldn’t change you into the man she wanted you to be.”

“I don’t think it’s that simple,” he said.

“Most likely not. I’m sure there’s much that goes into a successful marriage, that I don’t understand. I do understand Rosie’s ambition, though. She’s a bright woman. If the opportunities were better for our sex, I could see her being a formidable force in any arena. Unfortunately, most woman today are reduced to being the power behind their man, living out their ambitions by proxy. You wouldn’t play that role for her. That’s not the same as failing her.”

He considered her point. Rosie had always admired her father, almost to the point of worship. Perhaps she’d grown up hoping to follow in his footsteps, as so many sons did. That path wasn’t available to her, so instead, she wished it for her husband.

Jack had the greatest respect for the George Sanderson. Maybe that respect had led Rosie to believe he aspired to be like her father. He never had. He was doing what he loved. What he’d always wanted to to do.

“Perhaps our ambitions never did align. But, there are other ways I could have tried harder.”

“As, I’m sure, could she,” Phryne said.

She went to the trolley and poured them each a drink.

“If nothing else, let yourself off the hook for failing to be the man she wanted. Especially if it was never who you were, or wanted to be, in the first place. You are very good at your job, Jack. Your brilliant mind would be wasted behind a desk.”

“Did I hear you correctly, Miss Fisher? Did you just say that I’m brilliant?” he smirked, smugly.

“Don’t pretend to be surprised,” she said. “I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know.”

She went to stand beside him at the mantel, pressing the drink into his hand.

“If I can’t be surprised to hear that I’m brilliant, am I at least allowed to be pleased that you think so?”

She rocked her head back and forth as if considering it.

“Pleased, I’ll allow.”

“Miss Fisher,” he said, setting their drinks on the mantel so that he could take her hands in his. “Just so you know. There is absolutely no way in which you make things worse for me,” he said.

“I’m glad to hear that Jack,” she said. “Because I don’t intend to stop my meddling, and I’d hate to have to break in a new Detective Inspector. I haven’t finished with the old one yet.”


End file.
